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Waiting for Dawn

On a grey morning before the stars have gone out,
hoarse-voiced east-wind assaulting sleep-silences,
I wake and remember the cruel embraces of death.
The pitiless clutch, the fearful down-hold,
the fierce, the final assertion of physical mastery,
sobbing and stifled endeavour of fugitive breath.

Spirit of life, Spirit of beauty, make haste to save us;
show in the east again the signal of victory;
as in the beginning let the beacon be lit.
Orient splendour of light everlasting, come thou,
illumine us who sit in death’s darkness and shadow.
Creator, oh cast this last enemy down to the fiery pit.